Celebrities

True Grit: Terence Stamp

There's a certain breed of actor that makes the most of every role, inhabits every bit of the characters he plays, and makes every film he's in worth seeing simply by the power of his presence. Terence Stamp is one of those actors

By all rights, Terence Stamp probably should've died sometime around 1968. A rakishly handsome, peerlessly dapper leading man on the rise in swinging London, with laser blue eyes visible from across the pond and a smoldering onscreen intensity, he should've drank and smoked and screwed his way into oblivion. But a funny thing happened on the way to celebrity cliché. Two things, actually. First, Stamp decided he wanted to be in the movie business for a long, long time. And then, out of nowhere, after a brief, splendid run, the movie business decided it was done with Terence Stamp. The work dried up. The party moved on. He was crestfallen. But he was also equanimous: he persuaded himself that someday, maybe not for years, but someday, the phone would ring again. And no matter when it happened, no matter where he was, he would be ready.

I hear you do not have a permanent residence?
That's true.

When was the last time you had one?
The last time I had a permanent residence was about 12 years ago. I had a house in the Hamptons, and I sold it. After that I decided I'd sort of stay in hotels for a while. I didn't intend it to go on for as long, but you can get addicted to nice hotels.

Why does that lifestyle suit you?
My style is greater than my earning capacity, so when I see a place I'd really like to own, I'm always a million or two short. So I just haven't got around to buying anything. And I like the idea of wandering around. I mean, I miss having a home, but there's a great charm to just taking every day as it comes, which helped by the fact of not having a permanent base.

Does this way of life motivate you to stay busy and stay on the move?
When I realized that I could make my living performing, what I most desired from the business was a long career. And I spoke to you know some very heavy-hitting actors about that. Olivier said to me, 'You need to be an athlete.' That in order to have a really long career performing, you needed to be fit like an athlete. You had to look at your body like your machine. Cary Grant also told me to exercise. So I started by looking at the things I used, like the voice. I knew that Olivier had a very beautiful voice, and we spoke about that, and he said, 'You need to take care of that, because you can lose it just by not developing it.' So that led quite quickly to breath. I read somewhere that the young Sinatra used to swim to keep his breath full. I started doing breath exercises quite early, and I'd say I was sort of about 27, 28 when I got seriously into breathing.

Did that mean cutting out cigarettes, alcohol? Or at least moderating?
The truth is I was always a pretty cheap date as far as alcohol was concerned. I was one of those young guys who was like, merry, happy, headache, hangover, after the first full glass of wine. So I never really had to give up alcohol. It gave me up.

It's interesting to me that longevity was a value for you at such a young age, especially given the environment you were in—London in the 1960s. as a value at that age, surrounded by what you must have been surrounded by, I find interesting and probably unusual.
I understood from reading biographies of actors that I admired that the ones who had long careers had a lull. Either they had a lull at the beginning, or they had a lull in the middle, or they had a lull at the end. So when my star set at the end of the 1960s and I was out of work for eight years, I was psychologically prepared for it. It didn't really deter me. I was inspired by something I read about Muhammad Ali—that when he was banned for refusing the draft, he stayed ring-fit. Because he had the feeling that when the call came, he would have to be ready. I found that very inspiring, and in those years when I was out of work, I kept thinking, "The call will come, and I must stay in shape."

It seems as if one of the keys to having what you wanted as an actor was getting comfortable with it going away.
Yes, and also it gave me the opportunity to not be observed when I was moving from young leading man to character actor. I wasn't under a magnifying glass, you know. A lot of maturing happened when I was out of work and traveling. There was less temptation to become a caricature of myself.

I'm interested in that transition from young leading man to character actor. It doesn't often happen. Most leading men can't pull it off.
Listen, it's not something I would ever have chosen. It was very sad for me. There was enduring sadness when I realized that at the end of the '60s, I was sort of in my prime, really. I was in my early 30s, and that's the age when I thought I would be a leading man. I don't think any actor would really choose, if they'd been honest with themselves. When I have to do these junkets and I'm being interviewed by journalists around the world, I often get asked, 'Why did you retire so early?' Which is very romantic, but I'm afraid it wasn't like that at all. I don't know why it ended. There's no real reason why it ended. I think I was heavily identified with the era, and when the era finished, I ended with it. It wasn't of my choosing. But I just chose not to give up the ghost. I just chose to think, "So this is just a few months." And then it was a year, and I thought, "Well, this is a year…" In the back of my mind, there was this feeling that the call will come. And when the call comes, I want to be ready. I want to be able to just get on the plane. I was in America once, and I saw Arthur Ashe, the wonderful tennis player? I saw him at the airport, and he just had his racket. And I thought, how elegant is that, you know, "Have racket, will travel"? I thought, yeah, I can view myself like that: I'm a trained actor. I've spent my adult life investigating this. And so I'll keep myself in good shape. I'll be ring-fit.